Daniil Medvedev the sleepy Octopus with tentacles of venom

Daniil Medvedev floats across a baseline while hitting sinuous, looping, somersaulting forehands and circular eight-handed backhands.

Russia's Daniil Medvedev at a training session ahead of the men's singles semi-final. Picture: AFP

Daniil Medvedev floats across a baseline while hitting sinuous, looping, somersaulting forehands and circular eight-handed backhands.

He camouflages himself against the back fence. The arms and legs are so long they go off in different directions like any self-respecting molluscs’. In his courtside box is an assortment of squids and cuttlefish.

His nickname is The Octopus. He likes a nap more than the ocean-faring ones. They get by on four hours a day. The tennis-playing Octopus is less proficient at burning the candle at both ends. He’s pulling five-setters and all-nighters, squirting ink everywhere, stumbling around Rod Laver Arena like it’s a Las Vegas casino and he doesn’t know if it’s Friday morning or Tuesday night.

He’s an eccentric, shrewd, cunning, unique and incredibly skilful mollusc – sorry, tennis player – with venom in his tentacles and an Australian Open semi-final against Germany’s Alex Zverev on Friday night.

“Just want to sleep now,” The Octopus wrote on a TV camera this week. Real octopus gasped. They want to kick him out of the club. They sent him an email headlined, ‘You Call Yourself An Octopus?’ They’ll sleep when they’re eaten by a whale. He’s spent 16 hours and 15 minutes on court, mixing night sessions with day sessions, flowing from one match to another like he’s riding the tides, winning one marathon clash before preparing for the next.

“After every match I’m in the locker room, I’m destroyed,” he says.

“But then we do a good job. The 3.30am finish (against Felix Auger-Aliassime) was tough because honestly, with Felix, I would say I was at 80 per cent of my physical abilities. Usually you start at a hundred and then it goes down. When you’re already tired it goes down a little bit faster. But one day off is probably enough to feel good the next day. So far, so good. The beginning of matches is what matters. And then if you’re dead after, it doesn’t matter. ­Because you have a day off.”

Medvedev swears he gets more knackered than most. He doesn’t know why.

“I should dig into it more,” he says. “We try very hard with my team to put myself at the 100 per cent of my abilities. I think we do it but for me, the question is, is it maybe something where you have to work, like, from 14 years old till 20 years old really hard on your aerobic, physical whatever?

“ Why I say that is sometimes I see some guys, and Hubi (Hurkacz) is one of them – I see them play five-set matches, 7-6 in the fifth, and they seem fine in the locker room. They just seem totally fine. I’m, like, wow, he looks good! Either maybe it’s a question of metabolism, genetics – I honestly have no idea. I just know I get tired. I fight my best.”

The aerobic, physical whatever will be factor on Friday.

“Probably everyone works hard but I know that what I started doing with my team since I was 22 or 23 years old, when I decided to be more professional, if I didn’t do it I’m done,” The Octopus says. “Like I could probably retire in a match, right? When I played against Novak (Djokovic) in Davis Cup in 2017, I started cramping. It was 1-0 in the fourth set and I was already cramping and then I literally fell down on the court and retired. I’m trying my best. I would love to be someone who isn’t really tired, who doesn’t care about the heat, but that’s not me. I try to win as I can.”

The men’s semi-finals are belters. Four whales. The winner of Medvedev and Zverev faces the winner of Djokovic versus Jannik Sinner. Any final will be a great final. Who would the eight-limbed mollusc rather play?

“Thing is, Jannik is playing so good now,” Medvedev says.

“If I’m 100 per cent honest with you, let’s say I’m in the final and who do I want to play, well, Novak, who never lost here, whatever, is going for some crazy stats, or Jannik, who isn’t losing a set even when he’s 5-1 down in a tiebreaker and stuff like this? I’m like, I don’t know. I really don’t know. I want them to go seven-hours-thirty, tiebreak, 30-28 in the fifth, and then maybe let’s see if they are a little bit tired on Sunday. I think it’s going to be a great match. I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can.

“I’m going to prepare for my match but if I have some time to watch, I’m going to enjoy it. They have a great rivalry.”

Zverev celebrated his four-set triumph over Carlos Alcaraz like the Vegas slot machines had fallen in his favour. He’s never won a major. He thought he’d never play again after a horror fall destroyed ankle ligaments at the 2022 French Open semi-finals.

“I was kind of on top of my game before the injury happened,” Zverev says.

“I was at my best level in my career. I’m extremely happy to be giving myself the chance again. Last year I wasn’t a slam contender. I wasn’t a contender to win a tournament like this.”

Zverev and The Octopus have history. When Zverev was about to serve for the match at last year’s Monte Carlo Masters, Medvedev kicked into survival mode, pulling the singles post away from the net and tossing it aside. It forced a delay and a kerfuffle. Zverev lost his way. The Octopus won the match. The postmatch handshake resembled the briefest of contact between a couple of dead fish.

“Look, Medvedev is one of the best players in the world,” Zverev said in the Netflix documentary, Break Point.

“He’s a player that probably has the most confidence out of anybody … but I also think a lot of things that Medvedev does are frustrating at times.

“He’s somebody that knows how to play with the head of the opponent. I think there’s always a lot of unfair things happening that he uses quite well to his advantage. I like to win and lose by playing tennis.

“I’m not somebody that tries to do kind of dirty games just to put your opponent off. That’s not how I was taught the game.”